US Open 2020: New York course Winged Foot hosts 14 years after Montgomerie and Mickelson beaten by Ogilvy

American Phil Mickelson (right) is still searching for an elusive US Open title after his final-hole blow-up helped hand the 2006 title to Australia's Geoff Ogilvy (left)

As the US Open heads back to Winged Foot, memories stir of the last time this savage New York course staged the major regarded as the toughest test in golf.

That 2006 edition will be forever remembered for the players who lost, more than the tenacious and resolute winner, Geoff Ogilvy. The Australian profited from the final-hole profligacy of two of the biggest names in the game.

Colin Montgomerie dramatically blew his best opportunity of winning a major and Phil Mickelson threw away his finest chance of winning his country's national title, the one major that still eludes him.

Both players finished with double bogeys to lose by a single stroke. It was a championship that will never be forgotten and not least by an English player who also carved a potential winning opportunity that week.

Kenneth Ferrie, a three times European Tour winner from Northumberland, played alongside Mickelson in the last pairing on an extraordinary final day 14 years ago.

As a result, the then 27-year-old reckons he is now better recognised in the US than at home. "It's bizarre," Ferrie told BBC Sport.

"Even in the north east of England, golf fans don't know who I am. Yet I can go to America and somebody will say 'Ken Ferrie, are you the guy from the US Open in New York?'"

Ferrie recalls the dramatically changing leaderboards that reflected Montgomerie's potentially title-clinching long-range birdie at the 71st hole and then the fateful double bogey that followed. Par would have been enough to win.

"You very quickly put two and two together and realise he made a mess of 18," the Englishman said.

Scotland's Colin Montgomerie leaves the 18th green at Winged Foot after a double-bogey six that wrecked his hopes of winning a major title

Montgomerie found thick rough with a pushed and weak seven iron second from 172 yards. The eight times European number one had waited an age to hit because of a lengthy ruling for playing partner Vijay Singh.

"Negative thoughts started to creep into my head," the Scot later recalled. "I defy anyone not to have negative thoughts when they have to wait 14 minutes to play the biggest shot of their life."

Ferrie, meanwhile, is able to recall one of the biggest weeks of his career. Everything seemed to fall into place from the moment he landed at JFK Airport and his courtesy car was waiting for him.

"Most weeks there always is a little hiccup, but nothing went wrong that week. It was just plain sailing," he said.

As expected, the course was "brutal" from the moment he first saw it, playing a practice round with Nick Dougherty. "We both missed the fairway up the first by no more than two or three yards and I think we both lost balls," he said.

But the layout fitted Ferrie's eye. It was a course where the premium was hitting fairways and greens, which was one of the reasons why Montgomerie was also such a threat.

It was Ferrie's first attempt at this major. "Everybody always said that the one tournament that would be kind of up my street would be the US Open, if I could get to play one," he said.

"I liked it straight away." The Ashington native opened with a one-over-par 71 and was irritated to miss a short birdie putt on his final green.

"I was disappointed to shoot over par, as all professionals are, but as the day went on I realised what a good score it was," he added.

"In the second round I had it three or four under but had a couple of double bogeys in the middle of the round and came off disappointed to shoot level par. But then you realise that one over through the first two rounds was pretty good."

On the Saturday he was paired with Ogilvy and a 71 left him at two over, one better than the Australian. As they departed the 18th green they looked at a scoreboard showing Ferrie tied at the top with Mickelson.

The final leaderboard shows Montgomerie and Mickelson were not the only players to mess up the 18th, with Jim Furyk dropping a shot to miss out on a play-off

"Geoff said 'good luck with that tomorrow' because he knew what playing with Phil in New York was going to be like," Ferrie said. "But Phil was brilliant and the crowd was brilliant."

That Saturday evening Ferrie agreed to a live radio interview over the phone with a local station at 9am the following day. He uncharacteristically missed the appointment because he overslept.

"It was 9.30 when I woke up and normally I'm a horrible sleeper," he said. "If I can get four hours sleep I'm over the moon." Never mind that it had been the night before the biggest round of his life.

"I just slept like an absolute baby," he said. It was one of those weeks when the then reigning European Open champion had found the so often elusive feeling of living and playing in the moment.

Not once was he distracted into thinking about implications of potentially winning such a huge event. "I never had that conversation on the way round, thinking if I win today this is going to change everything," he said.

"It was just a case of 'I'm in the tournament, I'm playing well, let's just crack on and get it done'."

But that measured perspective and serenity was temporarily jolted immediately before his final round. "Phil went to the tee before me and I was perfectly fine until I left the putting green," he recalled.

"As I was walking up, there were railings either side and the people were about 10, 20 deep and they were just screaming. And that was the first time I felt nerves.

"I wouldn't say I was petrified but I was very nervous. But I hit a good drive up the left side of the fairway and from there, no nerves whatsoever."

Ferrie made a strong start, but his momentum disappeared with three putts on the bumpy surfaces of the seventh and eighth greens. "The last day just wasn't meant to be," he admitted.

"I didn't do much different to the first couple of days but missed a couple of greens in the wrongs spots, missed a couple of short putts. It was 12 pars and six bogeys for 76."

Ferrie finished sixth, three shots behind, but remains grateful for the experience of playing with Mickelson, who had won the two most recent majors, the 2005 US PGA at Baltusrol and the Masters the following April.

"It's just dream stuff for anybody really," Ferrie said. "The odds said he was going to win at Winged Foot as well and then he'd have been going to Hoylake for the Grand Slam."

Those odds had further shortened when Mickelson came to the 72nd tee needing a par for victory. Up ahead Ogilvy successfully pitched and putted to set the target at five over par, having earlier chipped in at the 17th.

A month later at Hoylake, Ferrie chatted with the Australian winner about how his lone major victory unfolded. "When he got up and down at 18 he didn't know it was to win," Ferrie recalled.

"He openly admitted he was getting up and down to finish second to lose by a shot. So if you said to Geoff 'up and down and you win the US Open,' does he get it up and down? It's a different mindset.

"But that's what US Opens are, they're survival of the fittest," Ferrie added.

And despite his erratic driving it looked as though Mickelson would eventually prove to be that last survivor. But he smashed his final tee shot left and behind a tall tree.

The percentage play was to punch it out to the fairway, but "Phil the Thrill" does not think that way. He took it on and went for the green, only to clatter his ball into the branches of the obstacle in front of him.

Then he found a plugged lie in a greenside bunker and two putts later Lefty was admitting: "I'm such an idiot."

Ferrie had the best view of anyone and admits his jaw dropped at Mickelson's choice of second shot. "I thought just pitch it out," he said.

"Phil's wedge game is probably the best there has ever been. Wedge it to 100 yards and then you'd have up and down from 100 yards to win or you've got an 18-hole play-off.

"He's won majors already, Geoff has won none. The odds would say he would have beaten Geoff the next day.

"Then again, who is anyone to question the genius of Phil Mickelson?"

Ferrie flew home that night and only then did a few "what ifs" enter his own mind before quickly accepting it simply was not meant to be.

"I got to seven or eight holes left with a chance to win, Monty got to the 18th fairway with a chance to win, Phil got to the 18th tee, but at US Opens it is the last man standing who wins," he said.

Ferrie, now aged 41, says "life is good" despite his European Tour career being curtailed by a neck problem and arthritis in his hands. He will watch this US Open on television.

And he admits with a chuckle that he will be boring friends with constant recollections of where he hit his ball back in 2006. He also says it will be "bizarre" that such an atmospheric golfing environment will be fan free.

This US Open will be another enormous playing test where players will be well served to follow advice Ferrie received in early 2006 to stay below the hole.

"That's the one thing I tried to do all that week," he said. "Pretty much every green at Winged Foot pitches from back to front and if you go past the flag you can end up putting off the green."

Ferrie also believes Winged Foot will not be overpowered by today's biggest hitters. "If the golf course is set up with decent rough, it doesn't matter how far you hit it you've got to be in the right places," he said.

Undoubtedly, though, this championship will have to be something very special to come close to serving the drama of the last time it was staged at Winged Foot.

For Ferrie 2006 in the New York town of Mamaroneck provided his only real shot at a major. Although he did not claim the trophy he did gain a headful of extraordinary memories.

"It was a once in a lifetime chance to be in the thick of a tournament on the biggest stage in the world with the whole world watching you," he says with obvious pride.

He says he performed "OK" and "did alright". That was, actually, quite an achievement because as Ferrie rightly added: "It's a major that everybody remembers."